Fifteenth Sunday, Year C
(Deuteronomy
30:10-14; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37)
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in the
first reading we heard:
The Word is very near to you; it is
in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
Now listen to the New Testament and recognize the
difference between the Old and the New:
The Word became flesh and made His
dwelling among us. We have seen His
glory, the glory of the One and Only, Who came from the Father, full of grace
and truth. (John 1:14)
The first lesson almost all religions can accept,
for all -- more or less -- have their own teachings which they hand down the
generations with like encouragement: the word is very near to you; it is in
your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
And peoples thus shepherded do think that they
can indeed obey that teaching -- whatever it may be -- and find the salvation
promised by, for example, Mahomet, Confucius, Buddha, and many others ... they
all follow the same principle: listen, learn, do, and you will find what is
promised.
Moreover, in the book of Deuteronomy we heard
what was promised:
Then the Lord your God will make you
most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb,
the young of your livestock, and the crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make
you prosperous, just as He delighted in your fathers. (30:9)
Promises were made which would attract mankind:
prosperity, children, success and security ... everyone can appreciate such
things, most indeed want them. Such
promises were given to encourage the Chosen People to do what all mankind
thinks they can do: listen to the teaching, learn from it, and then practise
it. They tried for nearly two thousand
years and never succeeded:
As
it is written, ‘There is no one righteous, not even one.’ (Romans 3:10)
The revelationary fact is that God was leading
His Chosen People – ultimately for the good of mankind -- to a previously
unappreciated awareness of the human condition
and the unfathomed depth of human sinfulness; and also, thereby – most gently and gradually -- opening their
minds and hearts to an initial comprehension of the hidden presence and power
of sin in mens lives and of Satan’s personal dominion over them ... before
ultimately leading them to a stark and crystal-clear realization that their
need for salvation and the price of their redemption could only be met by the infinite
goodness, power, and faithfulness of the one true God of their fathers: ‘don’t
think you have only hear the truth and you will recognise it and be able to
practise it; you are in far, far greater need than that!’
The Word became flesh and made His
dwelling among us. We have seen His
glory, the glory of the One and Only Who came from the Father, full of grace
and truth. (Romans 3:10)
The Word was not just audible sounds making
instructive teaching; no, the Word was a Person, the very Person of the Son of
God, and Christian salvation would come from faith in Him, communion with Him:
Jesus answered, ‘I am the Way, the
Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the
Father except through Me.
(John 14:6)
And the promises made in the New Testament are
not earthly joys on a bigger and grander scale, for as we learn from St. John
(1:12-13):
To all who received Him, to those who
believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God; children
born not of natural descent, not of human decision or a husband’s will, but
born of God.
Through faith in, communion with, Jesus, we are
called, by His Spirit, to love God our
Father as His adopted children:
With all our heart and with all our
soul, and with all our strength and with all our mind;
and for
the ultimate glory of the Father Who loved us and sent Him among us:
to
love our neighbour as ourself (Luke 10:27);
that they may be made perfect in one
and that the world may know that You (Father) have sent Me, and have loved them
as You have loved Me (John 17:23).
And so, People of God, let us all clearly
recognise that we are not just to hear the teaching – above all the teaching of
Jesus and His Church – and try to keep it ourselves, because we most certainly
cannot keep it of ourselves and any attempt to do so would be thinking
presumptuously of ourselves and showing no true appreciation of Jesus our
Saviour. We have to aim in all things at
communion with Jesus, that is why He gives Himself to us in the Eucharist:
Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you the
truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have
no life in you. For My flesh is real
food and My blood is real drink. Whoever
eats My flesh and drinks My blood remain in Me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent Me and I live
because of the Father, so the one who feeds on Me will live because of Me. (John
6:53-57)
Through Jesus’ presence and His Gift of the
Spirit to us in the Eucharist, and through the manifold helps provided by our
sharing in the life and communion of Mother Church, we have to learn to love
Him Who became a human being like us, because:
All things were created through Him
and for Him and God the Father wants all things to be reconciled through Him
and for Him;
as St.Paul (Colossians 1:16, 20) tells us. And then will be fulfilled what the Psalmist
(37:5-6) taught:
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in
Him and He will do this: He will make your
righteousness shine like the dawn and your cause like the noonday sun.
